MATHEMATICS
TEACHER: The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art.
STUDENT: Art? Surely you must be joking! How can you call math art?
TEACHER: It is the purest of the arts, as well as the most misunderstood. As G. H. Hardy says ("A Mathematician's Apology"): `A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.' That's what math is - wondering, playing, amusing yourself with your imagination. The amazing thing about making imaginary patterns is that they talk back! After you have created them, they do what they want to do whether you like it or not. You find then that to get at the truth about your imagination, you must use your imagination again, and that is hard creative work! So this is the mathematician's art ... asking simple and elegant questions about our imaginary creations, and crafting satisfying and beautiful explanations.
-- quoted/paraphrased from "A Mathematicians Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form" by Paul Lockhart
"Mathematics arose from the awakening of the human soul. The mathematician does not look for truth with a practical purpose. To cultivate mathematics only for its practical purpose is to despoil the soul of mathematics. The theory that we study today, and that appears to us impractical, might have implications in the future that are unimaginable to us. Who can imagine the repercussions of an enigma through the centuries?
Mathematics is one of the surest ways for a man to feel the power of thought and the magic of the spirit. Mathematics is one of the eternal truths and, as such, raises the spirit to the same level on which we feel the presence of God...Without dreams or imagination, mathematics is impoverished; it is lifeless.”
From "The Man Who Counted" by Malba Tahan
Mathematics is one of the surest ways for a man to feel the power of thought and the magic of the spirit. Mathematics is one of the eternal truths and, as such, raises the spirit to the same level on which we feel the presence of God...Without dreams or imagination, mathematics is impoverished; it is lifeless.”
From "The Man Who Counted" by Malba Tahan